Album Review: The Haunting and the Powerful (October Noir)
I discovered October Noir when I posted a question on Type O Negative group on Facebook about which band sounds most like Type O. Couple of commenters said October Noir and listened to them on YouTube, finding that they sound similar to Type O, including musical style and Pete-like vocals by Tom Noir who also plays bass just like Peter Steele. Their debut album, The Haunting and the Powerful, was released on October 19, 2017, 7½ years after Peter Steele of Type O died too early. Without further ado, let's dive into the fall-crafted songs. The quasi-title track "The Haunting" has haunting piano that reminds me of being in a haunted house on a gloomy and foggy day. Aside from piano, it got riffs that make the track more doomy. "Volatile" has Frown-esque organ mixed with Type O-like rhythm and has really cool shouts during organ-rich choruses. Due to their musical property, "Volatile" is closest in association to Halloween in my opinion. The verse leading to chorus reminds me of being in a dining room in a haunted house. "Trinity" has awesome soft-rhythmic piano and has doom riffs that screech up this song. "Alpha Omega" is where guitar is prominent. It has grooves with organ hooks. The interlude has really high-pitched string and horn, followed by Type O-like rhythm then goes up and down the mounds with strings. "Exhume" shines the light with shrieking keyboards and piano. "Silicon" has Type O-like riffs while secreting October static tone produced by a keyboard. The acoustic guitar taken right off of TON song " " brings daylight to the woods in "Vertebra Seraphim", otherwise it's rhythmically depressing. "Deep Woods" is the longest song of the album by a long shot. As with many Type O Negative songs, "Deep Woods" is split into three well-defined cantos. It starts out with slow, gothic rhythm that repeats for six plus minutes before it gets chilled with keyboard ambience embedded in doomy and crawly guitar. This part reminds me of being in an old wooden house while snowing outside and getting cold inside. Then it gets warmed up with low-tuned acoustic guitar that builds into louder guitar then back down with piano added. You would love the title of this final track — "Feel Heart Love", but it's rather dark for first 22 seconds. It is slow, repetitive, but each one changes in instrumentation or sound produced by a keyboard, including the one just after five minutes into it sounding like a xylophone that reminds me of a little girl. I now think this sound was replicated by a keyboard like always in this album. This song and the album ends with a choir chanting the title. October Noir's first album contains spotlights. The keyboard put to real good use in this album, producing good variety of sounds and tones. October Noir establishes the most modern Type O sounding, even after it permanently disbanded seven years before this band's first release, and shall not be disliked by many Type O Negative fans. Gotta see what their second album, Thirteen, will bring... I think we'll see a repeat in instrumentation used, maybe with one or couple first-time instruments. 6.5/10 H